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CAPTCHAs don’t prove you’re human – they prove you’re American (2017)

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Re: CAPTCHAs don’t prove you’re human – they prove you’re American (2017)

#61

Post by rndgermandude »

krtkush wrote: post #10
gillesjacobs wrote: post #6

The crosswalks Captcha provides the most difficult cultural discrepancy for me. Some US crosswalks look like European "forbidden for all traffic" road markings. Pretty much the opposite of a crosswalk. I always have to do a double take on those.

And in India, they are commonly refereed to as "Zebra Crossing". No one refers to them as cross-walks and most have no idea about that term.

Zebrastreifen ("zebra stripes") is the German colloquial name. You will hardly find anybody (at least in my parts) calling them the proper official "Fußgängerüberweg" (pedestrian overpath/pedestrian crossing). Even most police will call them Zebrastreifen except sometimes when writing reports or in court.

I failed a few recaptchas like that too, tho not due to language barrier, but because I didn't pick some things that didn't look like crossings at all. I am convinced that some of those supposed markings were not crossings at all but things that somehow got into google's labeling db as outright false positives.

Re: CAPTCHAs don’t prove you’re human – they prove you’re American (2017)

#62

Post by watwut »

dkdbejwi383 wrote: post #17
tchalla wrote: post #13

It always amazes me that we as a society insist on using ambiguous words ("crosswalks" or otherwise) when there is an option to use an unambiguous option.

It often happens with things designed and made in the USA. It is assumed that the terminology or customs of the USA apply to the rest of the world, when it's often not the case. For example, their bizarre date system. Widespread use of state abbreviations and timezone abbreviations that are only known in the USA. "Zip code" on forms for customers in New Zealand or India or France.

To be fair, I have seen non Americans making basically same assumptions.

I have even once seen a thread where Easter Europeans who never been in America argued with Americans about meaning of English word and about American culture. It was literally "are you sure you know better then American how Americans would interpret that word/situation in their day to day life" situation.

Re: CAPTCHAs don’t prove you’re human – they prove you’re American (2017)

#63

Post by forest_dweller »

wiredfool wrote: post #21
dkdbejwi383 wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Same in the UK and most commonwealth countries I think

There are pelicans too. Because pelicans have bright yellow flashing balls and ...

The bright yellow flashing balls are called a Belisha beacon and they are for zebra crossings.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Belisha_beacon

Pelican crossings have the button you must press to cross.

Re: CAPTCHAs don’t prove you’re human – they prove you’re American (2017)

#64

Post by corin_ »

lota-putty wrote: post #32
krtkush wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And in India, they are commonly refereed to as "Zebra Crossing". No one refers to them as cross-walks and most have no idea about that term.

There are no Zebras in Indian subcontinent; we accepted Anglo term. Cross-Walk(even Pedestrian) is a better term than Zebra-Crossing; for kids though, Zebra helps. Edit: English were in world over making colonies across Afro-Asian countries. https://www.thehindu.com/in-school/sh-science/The-zebra-in-o... Has anyone seen a Zebra cross a zebra-crossing? Only happens in England.

A zebra crossing is a specific type of pedestrian crossing with specific rules different to those of other types. It needs a non-generic name (and look) so people understand how it works. Sure you could change your suggestion to something like "non-light controlled pedestrian right of way crossing" but I'm glad we say Zebra instead!

Re: CAPTCHAs don’t prove you’re human – they prove you’re American (2017)

#65

Post by ojosilva »

AntiImperialist wrote: post #42

I deliberately give some wrong answers to CAPTCHA questions. A lot of the times, it is accepted.

I think captchas are weighting in your natural human responses, which may include your mistakes (which are human), mouse/pointer movements and actions and timing of your answer.

Re: CAPTCHAs don’t prove you’re human – they prove you’re American (2017)

#66

Post by Jean-Philipe »

canofbars wrote: post #15

Anyone with a half functioning brain can figure out which ones are the taxis. Taxis are not yellow in my country and I would have no issue picking those out. They have the very distinctive sign on the roof that no normal car has. Not even OP was confused by this, they are just complaining on the behalf of some theoretical person who might get confused.

I'm from Germany and I actually do have issues every once in a while. Like traffic lights, or buses, are mostly fine, but in some cases, I wasn't sure and chose the wrong images. Is that a truck or a bus? Is that a street lamp or a traffic light? I did feel that it would have been easier for me if I was American.

Re: CAPTCHAs don’t prove you’re human – they prove you’re American (2017)

#67

Post by lifthrasiir »

canofbars wrote: post #15

Anyone with a half functioning brain can figure out which ones are the taxis. Taxis are not yellow in my country and I would have no issue picking those out. They have the very distinctive sign on the roof that no normal car has. Not even OP was confused by this, they are just complaining on the behalf of some theoretical person who might get confused.

> Anyone with a half functioning brain can figure out which ones are the taxis.

Unfortunately, there are tons of people with less than half functional brain... well I'm slightly joking here, but the point is you can't assume your user's cognitive ability. The CAPTCHA as it designed should be obvious to any human that would use your website (including those with impaired cognition) while being hard to robots. The OP is claiming that Google CAPTCHA is an international service and yet can fail to be obvious to a significant portion of non-Americans that would use your website.

Re: CAPTCHAs don’t prove you’re human – they prove you’re American (2017)

#69

Post by philshem »

not trying to stir up a shitstorm, but since this article mentions IQ tests - "what's a nickel?"...

Check out the history (1971) of Larry P. and California's use of IQ testing in schools.

> As a group, African Americans across the country scored lower on IQ tests. The lawsuit alleged that was because the tests were biased toward Eurocentric culture. Questions like, ”Who wrote Romeo and Juliet,” they argued, didn’t assess a student’s innate capacity to learn. It tested knowledge that some – and not others — had acquired at home or school.

https://www.kqed.org/news/11781032/a-landmark-lawsuit-aimed-...

and from Radiolab:

> What is the color of rubies?

> Kaufman argued “Uh that question is clearly biased.” I mean, the correct answer on the test is rubies are red but A...

> If your family has more money, you were more likely to know what was a ruby was

> And B, Kaufman says, Ruby was a popular name in the Black community. So certain kids might think the question was referring to people, not gems.

https://www.wnycstudios.org/podcasts/radiolab/articles/g-pro...

and in general, further reading: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intelligence_and_public_policy...

edit: add year to Larry P.

Re: CAPTCHAs don’t prove you’re human – they prove you’re American (2017)

#70

Post by mytailorisrich »

II2II wrote: post #56

Many of the criticism of the article focuses upon people being able to figure out Captcha's even if the aren't American, but there are a few things to consider: * A lot of native English speakers are going to have at least some exposure to American culture. For example: they may recognize that taxi's are yellow from American television and movies. Not everyone is going to have that exposure. * It assumes that there i…

This ignores an important point that this is a game of elimination and contrasts.

For example in that taxi captcha, there are 4 pictures of trees and 5 pictures of vehicles. 1 vehicle is not identifiable, 1 is an utility van in the distance, and the remaining 3 are yellow cars. These yellow cars have phone numbers on the sides and signs on the roof (where visible).

My bet is that the 3 yellow cars are taxis.

(And as it happens yellow actually seems to be the most common colour for taxis throughout the world where taxis have a specific colour.)

It usually works out fine. On rare occasions it's tricky but then it's possible to request another captcha.

I think people are trying too hard to find problems. I find hard to believe the comments that blow this out of proportion.

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